All employees are guaranteed the right to work in an environment free from unlawful workplace harassment and retaliation. No employee may engage in conduct that falls under the definition of unlawful workplace harassment indicated below.

Workplace harassment is defined as unwelcomed or unsolicited speech or conduct based upon race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, disability or sexual orientation that creates a hostile work environment or circumstances involving quid pro quo.

Hostile work environment is defined as one that both a reasonable person would find hostile or abusive and one that the particular person who is the object of the harassment perceives to be hostile or abusive. Hostile work environment is determined by looking at all of the circumstances, including the frequency of the allegedly harassing conduct, its severity, whether it is physically threatening or humiliating, and whether it unreasonably interferes with an employee’s work performance.

Quid pro quo harassment consists of unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other verbal or physical conduct when submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual’s employment, or when submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment decisions affecting such individual.

Retaliation is adverse treatment which occurs because of opposition to unlawful workplace harassment.

Workplace harassment does not include personal compliments welcomed by the recipient, or social interaction or relationships freely entered into by employees or prospective employees, nor does it exclude claims where the grievant and the alleged harasser are of the same sex.

An employee who believes he or she has been subjected to workplace harassment should promptly report the circumstances to his supervisor, or when the supervisor is the alleged harasser, to the employee’s Vice President or the President. The employee should otherwise follow the procedures for employee grievances listed in Section 3.12.1 (Employee Due Process) of this Manual.